Before & After: This Victorian Home from 1885 Gets an Unbelievable Transformation

A married couple tackled this challenging project, and the results will blow your mind.

When house renovators Jeff Born and Victoria Born-Doody first laid eyes on a historic little house on Watson Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, they knew that they had found their next big project. The house, which was built in 1885, was filled with tiny historic charms, like elegant curved walls and French doors joining the upstairs bedrooms. However, it was also completely falling apart. But the married couple was determined to make it work. "We fell in love with this beautiful mess," Victoria tells us, "and we wanted to fix it."

The Exterior Before

The Exterior After

"We gutted a majority of the walls, the kitchen, and the upstairs bathroom. The exterior was painted and Window World replaced the windows throughout. Jeff and I rarely saw eye to eye on just what exactly needed to be torn out, but of course, I was the one in the midst of the plaster and lath, while he was the "rebuilder," therefore, I of course wanted to save as much as I could, and he wanted me to tear out everything. His philosophy was that it was easier to replace walls with sheetrock than to try and patch in plaster. He won this argument. And I am humbled to say he was right."

The Bedroom Before

The Bedroom After

"One of my favorite details of the house is the hinges on the second floor bedroom doors. They are antique and very detailed, so we removed all of the paint from them, and then buffed and oiled them back to their former beauty. It is a small detail, but the charm they add is just delightful! The hardwood floors that we had redone turned out amazingly beautiful as well. When the contractor sent me pictures, while he was working on it, it actually brought tears to my eyes—to take something that was so beat up and ugly and restore it to its former beauty is nothing short of incredible to me."

The Bathroom Before

The Bathroom After

"Everyone thought I was crazy installing two separate vanities in the second floor bathroom (because of the layout, putting in a single double vanity was not an option), but in the end they told me how much they loved them. We tried to stay in the era of the house, and therefore decided on a black and white tile for the floor, and simple subway tiles for the walls. We also wanted to give it a little something more, so we added glass accent tiles throughout. The fun quirk of the bathroom is the tiny little double hung window (yes, it opens!) in the shower that Jeff framed with the glass tile. He is all about the little details, no matter how much time it takes."

The Stairs Before

The Stairs After

"The original stairway to the basement had been moved to make way for a kitchen addition and was separated from the rest of the house. One of the kids that grew up there stopped by and told us that their mom wanted to make sure there was only room for one person (her) in the kitchen, so she built it narrow and away from the rest of the house. This was definitely not our style, so when our renovation began, we moved the stairs back to their original location and opened up the kitchen to the dining room, and went further by opening this room up to the living room. I tried to make the archways "frame" each room by painting them the same color, so if you are standing at either end of the house, and look to the next room, there is a symmetrical, calming feeling to the rooms."

The Kitchen Before

The Kitchen After

"Real life renovation is nothing like television renovation. It is going to take more than two weeks (or two months) to completely renovate a house. Contractors are expensive, so make sure if you are going to hire most of the job out, you figure out how much that is going to cost you before buying. We did all of the work we could ourselves, and still spent nearly $60,000 on renovations – more than the price of the house! When renovating a house, one thing leads to another; you initially plan to tear out a wall, and it may not occur to you that you now have to bring that outside wall up to code. And sometimes when you are tearing out one wall, the adjoining wall cracks and, before you know it, you are completely gutting an entire room and bringing it up to code. It is called a renovation "project" for a reason -- it is going to be a project!"

The Living Room Before

The Living Room After

"Although making a profit is obviously one of the big reasons that my husband and I do house renovations, it is also extremely important for us to make a home for someone. It is extremely rewarding to us to be able to take a ramshackle house and put our blood, sweat, and tears (literally!) into it and have someone purchase it and call it home. A few times, the kids who grew up in the house stopped by to see what we were doing. About halfway through the project, one of the daughters stopped by and took a tour. Her comment was, 'Wow, I can't believe it's the same house. My mom would have loved it!' These are the things that make it all worthwhile to us. We want to make the family proud of the work we have done."

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